The Culture of Nice Makes Nice Guys Finish First with Doug Sandler
Posted by John Livesay in podcast0 comments
Episode Summary:
Gratitude trumps suspicion all the time. Instead of looking for the things that your people are doing wrong, intentionally look for the things that they are doing right and acknowledge it so that trust is built. This is the reason Doug Sandler believes that nice guys finish first. The people inside the organization are more important than the products and services its sells, because being high tech may get you to places but going high touch with the entire team makes everyone see your vision. Doug shares more tips on building trust through a culture of nice and the moments that formed his life.
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Our guest is Doug Sandler, author of Nice Guys Finish First. He said in order to create a culture of nice, if you catch people doing something right and acknowledge it. He has something called a piggy bank moment. Find out what he means by that. Also, don’t compare your beginning to other people’s middle. You’ll never be happy. You need to celebrate your own progress. Another great tip is high-touch trumps high-tech every time, and he has a great story that shows what he means by that. His recipe for success or as he calls it new math, is that success is ability times effort, if either one is a zero, then your results are zero too. He also challenges us to not be normal and let go of worrying about making mistakes. Enjoy the episode.
Listen To The Episode Here
The Culture of Nice Makes Nice Guys Finish First with Doug Sandler
Doug, welcome to the show.
It’s great to be here, John. Thank you for returning the favor. Episode 125 was the episode that you were on my show. Thanks for hanging out with me and building that relationship throughout the entire year, John.
That’s really what it’s all about, it’s building relationships. That’s your whole focus when you give a keynote; building better relationships create better business. Tell me your story of origin. How did you come up with the branding of Mr. Nice Guy before you wrote the book? What was it like to be the son of Dave Sandler?
I am the son of Dave Sandler. What’s interesting about what you say, John, imagine walking out of your door when you’re six years old. You’ve got your mom and you’re there and you’re carrying your little woobie, my blanket at the time. I can just remember my mom saying to me so many times, “Dougie, be nice,” as I walked out the door over and over and over again. For me, being nice wasn’t a matter of practice, it was a matter of principle. My mom had said that to me so many times as I was growing up that I was destined to be a nice guy growing up. Later on when my dad, Dave Sandler from Sandler Sales, created that entire sales system, I can recall all of the business principles that he threw in my direction, just as a part of being around him and him growing the system and building the system. The combination of the sales system that my dad created and the principles that my mom had laid out of, “Dougie, be nice,” those two things collided. That’s how I’ve led my entire career. No matter what I’ve done in my life, whatever career path that I’ve chosen, those principles, whether that be the sales system that my dad created or the nice philosophy that my mom instilled in my head, those things have all followed me everywhere I’ve gone.
The whole goal of The Successful Pitch Podcast is to give people little nuggets of how to craft a story that pulls people in. You did a great example. I’m going to break down what you probably did naturally. If you noticed what Doug said there he said, “Imagine being six years old and holding your blanket, and your mom saying, ‘Dougie, be nice.’” Instantly, we’re taken back. That’s great exposition. We know exactly where we are, we can see it, we can feel it. When you talk about your father’s structure combined with your mother’s framework of being nice, they collided. Words like that are dramatic and memorable. I can see why you’re such a great keynote speaker. The challenge is when you’re giving your pitch to get someone to join your team, to get a new client, whatever it is, you need to paint a picture just like Doug did. Thank you for letting me break that down a little bit.
You can always say in emails to somebody, “What an awesome, what a great, what a wonderful.” Those words are so overused. If you say something like, “It was unexpected or what an amazing pleasure it was, and it was a pleasure because of,” and then you list a word, “It brings me back to this time when I was,” it puts you right in the position of having people follow you back in that story. That’s always what I love to do, either when I’m doing a keynote or when I’m just having a conversation with somebody. It’s so much more enjoyable to have a story as a part of your lesson that you’re teaching.
Nice Guys Finish First: Nice Guys Finish First
Storytelling and specifics show you care enough to do your due diligence, your preparation before you get in front of somebody. That has been my key to success and it seems to be yours as well. What would you say was the catalyst for coming up with the book Nice Guys Finish First? It’s obviously a play on our phrase of, “Nice guys finish last.” You’ve flipped that paradigm on its ear. How did you come up with that?
In March of 2013, I was in an appointment that my financial planner that we had set up. He had said, “Just be on the lookout for this next opportunity that may find you.” It wasn’t until about six months later in August of that same year that I met another keynote speaker. His name is Ryan Estis. He was delivering a speech at National Association for Catering and Events conference. Literally, I was that guy that was sitting in the back of the room as he was delivering this speech. When he was done he said, “If you have any information or anything that you want me to know or you want to find out more about me, just come on up to the front of the room.” It must have been the way that I was running from the back of the room to the front of the room with my card hanging out in my hand, flying down the aisles and finally reaching him at the front. He said, “You’re not coming to ask me about my message. You’re probably going to ask me about how to be a keynote speaker, right?” I guess that is a typical approach of someone that comes with as much enthusiasm from the back of the room to the front of the room.
He said the first thing you need to do is hire a speaking coach. When I sat down with Jane through Skype probably about six or seven weeks later, she explained to me that the purpose of being a speaker was to get your message out to the world. The best way to do that would be to have a book. You not only need to have a book, but you need to have a bestselling book. She taught me the principles that I needed to know in order to put together a book. I hired a speaking coach. To make a long story even longer, I hired somebody else in the process of writing my books. She was a speaking coach, not a writing coach. I hired a guy to help me write my book. He said, “You need to write 200 pages in twenty weeks. It’s ten pages a week for twenty weeks. Later, we did it 165 pages and when it came down to editing it, the title came as a part of me being this nice guy consistently. Somebody always says eventually along the process of me either putting this book together or anything that I do is, “How can you consistently be so nice when you do everything that you do in the course of your day?” labeling me as Mr. Nice Guy. I just thought about what would be a good play on words for the title. “Nice guys finish last,” is the saying but I said, “That doesn’t have to be the case in business because I seem to always fall on the right side of things when it comes to business negotiations or sales calls.” I figured, “Nice guys finish first,” would be a nice play on words and then it was adopted.
What I take away from that is you invested in yourself. You’re coachable. Someone said you need to write a book. You hired someone to help you do that. You hired somebody to teach you how to be a great speaker. That whole concept of, “I’m going to be successful without getting people to help me,” is a total myth in my experience. I’ve also done the same thing. I feel that people who are willing to invest in themselves and hire experts to help them become a better version of themselves are the ones that ultimately make it and are willing to do that. As opposed to, “I don’t know if I have the money to spend on myself and learn this skill,” and then you don’t believe in what you’re doing.
It’s also a matter of you’ve got to find where you’re happy is. You have to get down to what is it that drives you and what is it that will make you happy in life? After so many years of a very successful entertainment business, I’m at the tail end of that entertainment career. From an age perspective, I’m in a world as a deejay. As a 47-year-old deejay five years ago, I was in a field that was dominated by twenty-somethings. There’s only so long that a club owner is going to respect you. A 50-something or a 60-something walking into a club is not going to have the same effect. Before my market quit on me, I figured, “Even if they never do, I want to look for an opportunity, something else that I could do in my life.” That’s exactly what it was. I found my happy. Part of my podcast, Episode 362, Mo Gawdat talks about this idea of finding your happiness. It’s such a true statement. You have to find and gravitate towards your happy factor and that is it for me.
Nice Guys Finish First: You have to find and gravitate towards your happy factor.
Nothing is sadder than someone who’s staying on the stage too long whether it’s an actress trying to play an ingénue that’s outgrown the role. We all have to keep evolving and changing. You talk about the culture of nice. Explain to people what that means.
It’s not just a project of the week. Nice is not something that you can say, “This week we’re decided that we’re going to be nice so let’s turn the corner.” You need to tell everybody what does that mean. To different people, it might mean different things. For me, part of it is doing something such simple stuff like catching somebody in the act of doing something right. We’re so focused as managers, we constantly are finding people doing the wrong thing or changing people’s behaviors. How about if we try to go about it and try to find people in the act of doing something right? If you show gratitude, show empathy, be a good conversationalist, be there to support other people, catch them in the act of doing something right. It’s not an action step that a lot of companies have in place. To create this culture of nice does start with the things like gratitude, catching him in the act of doing something right, building trust, building relationships, understanding communication. Those are the things that so many companies focus little on and focus more on the bottom line. If you focus on the people in your organization and not just the products and the services that you provide, you’ll find that your business will be much more successful.
I remember that book, The One Minute Manager, it was the first time I was introduced to the concept of catching somebody doing something right and acknowledging it, as opposed to assuming that they’re just doing the job. That shifts everything. Let’s talk a little bit about your philosophy about the test of trust, since you brought that up in terms of what a culture of nice includes is empathy and trust. What is the test of trust?
It’s a part of one of the training programs that I have. I’m happy to provide this. All they have to do is email me. It’s a very simple 25-question test or quiz that you can give yourself to find out what level of trust do people have in you and what are you throwing out there to the universe. If you’re throwing out to the universe that you’re not a trustworthy person, take this test and you score a B or less, then maybe you do need to work on some of the things in order to be a little bit more trustworthy. It’s not rocket science. It’s things like, “Do you return your calls quickly? Do you show up on time every time? Do you provide more than the value of the sale that you have made to your client? Do you go above and beyond?” If you can genuinely say yes to those, then you are doing a great job of providing trust and being trustworthy of the people in your life.
I resonate with the one that talks about, “I listen to what others have to say.” Do I trust myself to do that?
So many people are so focused on the thing that they’re going to say next that they forget to listen to the thing that’s being said to them right now. Being present as a part of your conversations and a part of your relationships is such a critical part of being trustworthy. It has everything to do and nothing to do with trust at the same time. It has everything to do with relationships.
Nice Guys Finish First: Being present as a part of your conversations and a part of your relationships is such a critical part of being trustworthy.
You have something called the piggy bank moment. Please describe what that is.
I was given this inspiration from my wife as she was moving out of an apartment before we got married a couple of years ago. She’s sitting in her apartment and she has this piggy bank that she’s carried with her since childhood. In the piggy bank was literally, for her at the time, every cent that she had. You open up the piggy bank and you count the money that’s in the piggy bank and she had $129. Financially, she was probably going through a struggling point in her life at that time. She said, “This is that moment. I’ve got this $129. I’m about to move out with my apartment. I’m about to move in with this guy who I love. This is what it comes down to. This is what life is all about.” I always tell people as we have conversations about the things that you’re most passionate about in life, what is that piggy bank moment? What is that moment that you can go back to in your life that you can say, “Things are going to be changed and things are going to be different starting right now?” Take an assessment of your life. Look at where your life is and move beyond where you are right now.
Even if she had $129 and that was all that she had, it was what she had. She did an assessment of her life. She looked at her life going backward and she looked at her life where she’s going forward from there. Take a snapshot of your life. What is that piggy bank moment at that exact time? You’ll see how drastically we think that things move at a creepy crawly pace in life. I look back to my life five years ago. I had no podcast. I had no book. I had no keynote speech. All of the new things that are in my life that have become my career, they did not exist five or six years ago. It’s so great to know that I had my piggy bank moment back then as well. It’s different than my wife’s but look what has happened since then. That’s the wonderful part about it.
It’s all about celebrating our progress as opposed to only saying, “I still don’t have this.” It is valuable to take a minute and say, “What did I accomplish this day, this week, this month?” Our brain craves progress. If we don’t acknowledge it, then we can spiral downward. One of the keys to staying nice and positive and focused is celebrating your own progress and then you can look for it in another people.
[Tweet “Don’t compare your beginning to other people’s middle.”]
One of the issues that we have as people though is we tend to compare our beginning to other people’s middles. We say, “I’m not there yet.” You look on Facebook and everybody’s doing better than you. You look on LinkedIn and Twitter and everybody is at these great vacation spots and they’re doing wonderful things with their business and they close these deals. The things they’re not putting in there are all of those many failures that they’ve had, which we all have but we tend to focus. I have a book on Amazon, Nice Guys Finish First, and I have 105 or 110 five-star reviews. I had one one-star review. Which is the one that I focus on? I focused on that one-star review. I’m like, “What the heck did I do to deserve a one-star review?” Not, “What did I do to garner those or to deserve the 105 five-star reviews?” We tend to focus on the negative things in our life. If we just compare ourselves only to where we were five years ago, you’ll see that you have made huge end roads. If you haven’t, it’s not too late. You start right now and you have your piggy bank moment now and you move forward. You look at all of the wonderful things that you’ve accomplished in the upcoming years as well.
It’s another way of saying focus on your own progress and you succeed. It’s a great example of how to do that which is wonderful. You have a whole page devoted to your website of quotes. I’ve picked a few of them. “High- touch trumps high-tech every time.” How did you come up with that? Do you have a story around that?
I’ve led my entire life that way. In my entertainment business as a deejay, everybody tends to focus on the equipment and 25,000 songs that they bring to their event and the wonderful speakers and all that. I just say, “I only need 60 songs to get your event but I have a year and a half in which to get there, so can we spend a little bit of time talking about what do you think? What’s your vision? What’s important to you? What do you think would be valuable to have at your party? What are the things that you see happening at your party?” I challenge all of my guys that I train in my entertainment world to not focus on such high-tech gadgetry, to focus on the relationship. That’s why I say, “High-touch trumps high-tech every time.”
[Tweet “High-touch trumps high-tech every time.”]
It’s that whole thing that people buy emotionally and then back it up with logic, not the features and benefits, and it’s great. We’ve all heard this concept of new math, kids learning a whole new way of division and all that other stuff that’s different. You have a new math formula for success. Tell us what that is. It’s ability times effort. If either is zero, you get no results.
You have to have the ability and you have to put forth the effort. If you rely upon your ability, then you’re not going to get there. If you rely upon just your effort but you have no ability, you’re not going to get there either. You need to at least show up on both of those. We all think in our mind we have to be the best at everything we do. We have to be the best at social media. We have to be the best keynote speaker. We have to be the best at being a husband or whatever it is. If just show up and you play the game, you’re going to get better. Understand that you’re probably going to be horrible at first, but if you are a zero, if you don’t even show up, you’re not even going to post. That’s my new math.
Now you have this other quote, “Why be normal when you can be WOWmal?”
Since I came up with that quote, I’ve seen that in other places. I thought I was the guy that created that, but I’ve seen that on many different places on social media as well. Maybe they have stolen it from me and they’re welcome to have it or I stole it from them, and if that’s the case, I beg forgiveness. We all can be normal in the process of our day. We can do the things that everybody else does. Why do that? Rock the boat a little bit. Be a little bit wow. Be out there. Be engaging. Be exciting. Be controversial. Ruffle some feathers a little bit of the way as you go through this, as you go through life. It does not make sense to be that normal guy. It makes more sense to be that WOWmal guy.
[Tweet “Why be normal when you can be WOWmal?”]
It makes you stand out and it makes you memorable and that’s the way to break through the clutter. That’s my big takeaway. One of the things you talked about in your book, Nice Guys Finish First, is the mistakes that nice guys should avoid. That intrigued me. Please tell us what those mistakes are that we should avoid if we want to be a nice guy.
There are a bunch of them. I have a little hand out, The Five Biggest Mistakes Made in Business Today. Taking one of them, it’s a failure to care. There are so often times that we are going through life and just go through the motions. Remember effort and ability, if either one of those equal zero, if you don’t show effort, if you don’t show ability, you’re not going to become successful. The failure to care is probably the granddaddy of them all because if what you’re doing in life is not making you happy, if you don’t have any level of passion in the things that you do and you don’t approach life with a, “I can do this attitude,” you’re going to end up with results that are less than stellar. Why would you want to go through life not happy and not caring about the things that you’re doing?
If you’re not happy, you may not realize this, but everybody around you knows you’re not happy. That’s what you’re spelling with your face, that’s what you’re spelling with your attitude and that’s what you’re spelling through your effort. It makes sense to drop back a little bit, do an assessment of where you are, have that piggy bank moment in your life, and determine what is going to be the next step for you to either fix what ills you and fix what the problem is or get out of the situation that you’re in and move on to something else. It is that simple. Some people might say, “I have bills to pay and I got to do this.” It is that simple. You must find something that you feel passionate about, that you love doing or you’re not going to be successful. It’s very challenging to be successful at something you don’t enjoy doing.
It’s so true because your why has to keep you going through the tough times and the challenges to pick yourself back up. Dough, it’s been such a pleasure and an honor to have you on The Successful Pitch. Is there a final thought you’d like to leave people with?
This was a little bit of a lesson that my dad led to me. My dad used to be in the potato chip and snack food business before he started the successful sales franchise business called Sandler Systems. He would drive around the trucks and he would go from store to store. Oftentimes, he would make no sales in the course of his day. One of the lessons that he taught me, which I learned to embrace is it is okay to fail. It’s not okay to quit but it’s okay to fail. If you failed at something, get back up and go for it. Figure out what the next step is, brush yourself off. It sounds so cliché, but the reality of it is just don’t quit. If you continue down the path that you are passionate about, you will be successful. If there are any words that can be left in someone’s mind at the end of this episode, it would be it’s okay to fail.
DougSandler.com is full of great information. Your book is on Amazon. How else can people follow you on social media? Do you want to give out your email for people to email you to get these great mistakes to avoid?
If somebody wants either The Five Biggest Mistakes or any number of different programs that I have, or if you want a little one-sheet on some of the stuff that I do, [email protected]. If you want to go to my website, hit the contact page. If you sign up for any of the newsletters that are on there, those things automatically will be generated and be sent to you. That might be the best way to go.
Thanks, Doug.
My pleasure, John. Thanks for having me on the show.
Links Mentioned
- Nice Guys Finish First
- Doug Sandler
- Episode 125 with John Livesay
- Ryan Estis
- Episode 362 with Mo Gawdat
- The One Minute Manager
- Nice Guys Finish First on Amazon
- Quotes
- The Five Biggest Mistakes Made in Business Today
- Sandler Systems
- DougSandler.com
- [email protected]
- Contact page
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